Friday, 3 May 2013

Sepia Saturday 175: Andy Warhol looks a scream, Hang him on my wall

Several regular visitors from Sepia Saturday have in the past commented on the length of some of my articles and asked how long it takes me to compile them. The short answer is How long's a piece of string? because some (e.g SS173) are off the cuff, while others are years in the making, gestating slowly either in my mind or as an accumulating collection of notes on the computer's hard disk. This week's contribution is one of the latter, a culmination of some four years of research, the publication of which has been triggered by a fortuitous find in the Tauranga Heritage Collection's store of cameras and photographic paraphernalia, and Alan's image prompt featuring coin-operated machines.

I've long had a fascination with the idea of photobooths, although by the time Andy Warhol turned them into tools of pop art and culture in the 1960s, they were well past their heyday. I don't remember ever seeing one, let alone having my portrait captured in one, during my youth in the 1960s and 1970s, but admittedly I was living in a former colonial backwater.

What made this style of portrait unique, at least until the advent of digital cameras and the ubiquitous camera phone, and no doubt the main attraction for the average joe (Hofman, 2011) as well as Warhol and like-minded celebrities, was that its composition was placed firmly in the hands of the subject.

For Warhol, the photo booth represented a quintessentially modern intersection of mass entertainment and private self-contemplation ... In these little curtained theaters, the sitter could adopt a succession of different roles ... Here, Warhol has adopted the surly, ultracool persona of movie stars such as Marlon Brando and James Dean, icons of the youth culture that he idolized.

He was not the first to use the photobooth in such a manner, the French surrealist André Breton having reputedly persuaded various contemporaries, including Salvador Dali, Max Ernest and Rene Magritte, into entering recently installed Photomaton booths on the Champs-Élysées in Paris, the products of which he then compiled into the slightly disturbing photomontage above (Bloch, 2012).

While I don't intend to recount the origins and early history of the photobooth here, I will recommend Mark Bloch's Behind the Curtain and David Simkin's Automatic Portrait Photographs, which do exactly that, in an authoritative, concise manner. For a more detailed account, try Näkki Goranin's recently published and well received book, American Photobooth. Although there were various attempts at mechanisation and automation of the photographic portraiture process from the late 1880s onwards, including Spiridione Grossi and Abraham Dudkin's Stickybacks in the United Kingdom (Simkin, 2013a & b), none appear to have met with significant commercial success until the mid-1920s.

Then in 1925 Anatol Josepho, a distant relative of Abraham Dudkin, patented the first reliable coin-operated automatic photobooth, the Photomaton. Advertised as producing a strip of eight cheap, good quality photographs in 8 minutes, the first Photomaton booths in New York were spectacularly successful, reputedly attracting "280,000 customers in the first 6 months." Two years later Josepho sold the Photomaton machines and patent rights to Henry Morgenthau for a staggering million dollars and future royalties (Kneen, 1928 & Bloch, 2012).

Throughout the 1930s there were numerous copy-cat efforts and refinements, but the most significant development took place in 1934, after William Rabkin bought out both Photomaton and the International Mutoscope Reel Company. He improved the design of the photographic apparatus, transformed the exteriors with art deco styling and changed the name to the Photomatic. A new wave of photobooth popularity ensued, perhaps due to the chic styling available at a low cost during the peak of the Great Depression.

Photomatic booths were manufactured in enormous numbers, in almost any colour you could think of, and shipped to all corners of the world. The remarkably intact apparatus in the image above from Sydney's Powerhouse Museum, apparently one of the few examples that have survived, was probably used in Queensland around 1935 to 1938.

This rather grimy Photomatic booth instruction plate from the Tauranga Heritage Collection (above, Machine No. DP 220) is all that's left of a seemingly identical apparatus, suggesting that the machines may also have been exported to and used within New Zealand. Wellington's Evening Post carried an advertisement in January 1940 (below) calling for the services of a "smart young girl" to operate a Photomatic machine at the New Zealand Centennial Exhibition.

Portrait of unidentified woman, 14 October 1938
Silver gelatin print in crimped metal frame with printed card backing
Taken by Photomatic booth at Detroit Bus Station

The feature differentiating Photomatic portraits from those produced by competitors was that the customer received a print "already framed." Constructed of a thin strip of sheet metal, the frame was crimped around the silver gelatin print and a printed card backing. Early Photomatic frames were all silver in colour and the backing designs simple, allowing for a date and place taken to be written by the customer. The card itself followed the art deco theme, and was usually a shiny silver colour.

Photobooth concessions were operating in public places country-wide, and the backing card stock soon carried the names of the locations or concessions. The portrait of the woman above was probably taken by Photomatic booth located on a station platform or in a waiting room similar to that shown at Boston's South Station, below.

This taciturn young man and his somewhat oversized cap paused long enough in the Photomatic booth in the busy Plankinton Arcade to record his passing through in the autumn of 1938. Wherever there were throngs of people, the International Mutoscope Reel Co. installed their Photomatic booths.

A little over three years later, and the booths were filled with very different looking subjects. After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour on 7 December 1941, the United States was at war and tens of thousands of uniformed servicemen all wanted a photo before they shipped out. Five weeks after the Declaration of War, this soldier was probably both excited and nervous when he posed with a cupid-style caricature cut-out in Washington D.C. in January 1942.

In 1944 and 1945, possibly due to shortages of metal, Photomatic portraits were produced with thick coloured satin-finish card "Photoframes." This example from early 1944 shows a marine home on furlough in Newark, New Jersey.

Portrait of unidentified woman, September 1945
Silver gelatin print with blue card frame & printed card backing
Taken by Photomatic booth in New York City

These wartime issues had no special place on the back for the place and date to be filled, but some helpful subjects wrote them anyway. This happy bespectacled woman in a striped blouse was presumably caught up in the euphoria that swept New York after the Japanese surrender on 14 August:

In the summer of 1945, New York was a city riding a wave of triumph ... It was a time of unbridled self-confidence. The city had contributed 850,000 servicemen to the war effort. The war had transformed New York into the capital of the world.

(Roberts, 1995)

Portrait of unidentified woman, 8 June 1947
Silver gelatin print with red metal frame & printed card backing
Taken by Photomatic booth in New York

After the war ended, Photomatic reintroduced metal frames, and for a couple of years they were enamelled in a variety of colours, including white, red, pale blue, lime green and orange. However, the frame itself had a slightly different profile, as shown in a modified patent application filed by Rabkin in 1948 (below), and included a fold-out stand.

Eventually the enamelling was dispensed with, and the standard issue frames returned to either plain silver or, more rarely, gold. I suspect this young man's uniform is not military (Correction: this is a US Army cap badge, thanks Mike), but he was proud of it and it's sad that he didn't take the time to record a message on the back. It is probably from the late 1950s.

This image of two young women was taken in July 1953 and bears the caption, "Dig this". Comparing their clothing and hairstyles with an old Life magazine from that date, it seems likely that they'd been out shopping or to the hair stylist. They do seem rather pleased with themselves.

It is a sad reality that many of the subjects of such found photos and the places where they were taken will never be identified, let alone the context or situation be deduced. However, browsing the internet for examples of Photomatics, one soon appreciates that many of them are still in situ, so to speak, and form an important part of family history. This image on musicmuse_ca's Flickr photostream shows her mother on her wedding day.

This is the shot my mother took on the day she got married to her first husband Fred. It was taken on a photomatic photo machine in Grand Central train station in NYC.
He got a job working for the Canadian Press in NYC. He had been dating my mother since 1939, and they had virtually lived together for several years in Toronto. He asked her to marry him and they took the train from Toronto to NYC.
The marriage to Fred did not last more than 5 years, but my mother's love affair with NYC lasted from 1945 until her death in Manhattan in January of 2003.

These words and further background to the story (Truth, Lies and Betrayal 9/1939) make it a material symbol, despite its inauspicious beginnings in the hustle and bustle of New York's Grand Central Station.

By the late 1950s, the design of the frame had changed again, the crimped metal being replaced by much more the much more versatile, rust-proof and cheaper ubiquitous plastic. The characteristic art deco styling of the Photomatic brand was gone forever.

The Photomatic was also facing stiff competition from rivals. Bloch (2012) suggests that it was outclassed by the superior technological, marketing and distribution techniques of companies such as Auto-Photo Co. One should not ignore the fact that more and more people owned their own cameras. This snapshot, probably from the mid- to late 1950s, shows a sailor and his sweetheart, the latter with a camera in a leather case around her shoulder. They are posing in front of a Penny Arcade at Long Beach Pier, an unoccupied photobooth clearly visible in the background.

I get the impression that Photomatic booths, despite attempts at rebranding and restyling, were slowly being relegated to the amusement arcades and drugstores where their predecessors had originated a quarter of a century earlier. This 1959 booth, perched between the candy and cigarette machines, boasts a brand new look and a comely invitation to "Take your photo ... now!" but I detect a whisper of hesitation. Perhaps she, like Jeannette below, is waiting for the right man to come along.

44 comments:

Brilliant post Brett, absolutely fascinating. I had no idea photobooths had been around so long. I've never seen any of these photos with the metal frames before, I guess because I've never looked. Oh, and the guy in the uniform in the Stickybacks photo looks a lot like Kevin Spacey!

What an interesting article.. all you ever wanted to know about photo booths! I shall look at my old passport photos in a different light now! (When I was younger the game was to see how many people we could get into a photo booth..usually done on the way home from a night out!)

Where I live the photobooth has made a major comeback as a fun feature at wedding receptions as well as company parties. The photobooth operators provide funny masks, hats, boas, big sunglasses, and other props.

I have a copy of a photostrip picturing my great grandaunt's ex-husband with his mistress -- part of the evidence in their divorce proceedings. Nothing worse than getting caught being stupid.

Thanks Jim, for your kind words. I was intending to bring your images more into the article, but there's a limit to the amount you can fit in - even if it is interesting - before readers start drifting off.

What a fabulous post. I've seen one of the books about photo booths. Now I don't have to buy it. You've told me everything I need to know and more.The photo booth was a pivotal prop in the French film "Amelie". Did you see it?Nancy

No I haven't seen the film, Nancy, but of course I'll be on the lookout for it now. I believe that photobooths have appeared in quite a few films, including one by Frank Sinatra, but I can't recall ever having seen a film with one in.

I enjoyed this walk down photo booth lane - I have been to gatherings lately where a photo booth is set up for participant fun. My husband and I sat in one at an Inaugural Ball - but I wasn't ready for the "snap" so the strip of pictures are ones I would never post. I'm glad your subjects were more photogenic.

I sure remember those photo booths. I have lots of photo booth photos to record my life in the late 50's and 60's. Every Thrifty Drug Store had one out in front at the time. By the way- referring to your comment om my castle sepia saturday post- We are related by marriage and Nancy and I are related to your wife. I did find a direct link to Hugh Bigod.

Fantastic piece of research and entertaining reading. The photo booth pictures seem to have a special allure. I have a few in my boxes of 4 and even 5 of us all piled on top of each other and crammed into the booth. What fun.

A terrific piece of history, Brett and a good read too. The man in the 1944 Newark photo is no soldier but a US Marine from his cap badge. However the next fellow in a cap is a soldier with a US Army cap badge. His enlisted rank would be on his shirt sleeve but is not in view. I'd guess late 1950s or early 1960s from the open shirt.

Does this photobooth technology continue in the third world? Seems like it would still be viable in many less sophisticated parts of the world.

I did not know there was so much history hidden in the humble photo booth. Great post, thanks for this information and photos. I did not know that they existed from such an early time. I did not use them in the sixties any more, but certainly used them together with my friends in the fifties.

The Andre Breton Surrealist figures looked like old police mugshots to me. For a number of years from the 1960s I used photo booths for passport and identity photos. No-one I knew had cameras then and photographers were too expensive.

Oh I am going to be searching for some of those stickybacks, if I haven't already found them and didn't know it! Again what an interesting post you outlined, complete with photos and one of my younger versions of "The King" of rock and roll! Great post, thanks.

I had never seen the framed photo booth pictures before. My friends and I spent our share of quarters making silly faces for the camera in a photo booth. Unfortunately, I think I only have 3-4 pictures from one strip. I wonder what happened to the rest?

That's the same with my family collection - only a couple where they are still in strips. There was one company in the UK - Polyphoto - which produced more than just a strip. There were a dozen or more in a grid pattern. I'll see if I can feature them in a future Photo-Sleuth article.

I hadn't noticed the ghostly figures - well done for spotting them. I suspect it may have been a double exposure, because exposure times by the 1930s/1940s were not long enough to have produced such effects. Perhaps it was even intentional, to give the idea of a busy station waiting room.

Splendid post!! Given my mother's skills with a camera, I was often tossed into one of these, at Woolworth, in my best clothes to sooth my mother's maternal instincts... Breton's collage is really the piece de resistance[for me]. Bravo!! :)~ HUGZ